After playing hours upon hours of PVP in The Elder Scrolls Online, here is a list of 10 reasons why you shouldn't play PVP in ESO. Simply because of balance issues, broken sets and poor mapdesign.

1: ZergingThe current meta only consists out of zerging. As a solo player or small group you don't stand a chance in any situation. The game is build around zerging only and massive combat. The only way of beating another raid is by having a larger raid than the enemy or time all your abilities to go off at the same time.

2. AbilitiesDue to the focus of the game being on zerging and large raids, only high damage AOE abilities are viable to run. Any other abilites are rendered useless. Especially single target abilities are useless to run when you face 50+ enemy players at once. Most used are Proximity Detonation, Eye of Flame and Sap Essence. Worst about these abilities is that they all follow the caster. While most other abilities are ground based and are totally neglected by most PVP raids due to their underwhelming performance in most situations.

3. Healing botsYes, you read that right: healing bots. However these are not actual computer programs but players dedicated to healing and purging only. The game allows you to heal indefinately whilst being tanky at the same time. From own experience a healing bot is most often a Templar which is able to permablock whilst casting abilities. It also results into raids running permapurgers too. Rendering all damage over time into oblivion.

4. BlockcastingIn the current version of the game (3.0.9) you are able to cast abilities whilst blocking. Which allows many classes and builds to be more tanky than ever intended. Especially healing bots benefit from blockcasting, since this allows them to reduce incoming damage whilst sustaining enough heals to survive massive damage.

5. ProcsetsProcsets have been semi-nerfed in the past by making them not able to critical damage. However many builds show that procsets are still overpowered in PVP. Dealing so much damage that most casual players won't even realise what hit them before turning into a pile of ash. For example the Worbels Revenge build by Fengrush shows how broken these sets are.

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6. Vicious deathIntented to burst down zergs, but being used only by zergs. This set makes all the players you have the killing blow on explode. It not only deals massive damage to your enemies in the area of that player you just killed, but also can create a chainreaction if you killing blow multiple enemies as the result of your first vicious death proc. Beside this, on the receiving end it punishes skilled players by making them die because some noob in the area died.

7. AOE capsIndeed, this needs to be in the list. Currently any damage ability you cast only deals damage to the first 12 players and this is completely random. This however not only applies to damage, but also stuns and knockbacks. Since the meta is to run in larger groups than 12 people, there will always be some enemies around that you "can't damage or CC" due to AOE caps.

8. Animation cancellingSome would argue that animation cancelling is about being a skilled player. While it actually gives players such a big advantage that you can bit hit by about 4 abilites in one second. In other words: before you realise it, you are dead. Animations are basically a build-in timer. If the game forced you to play the animation, you would actually have to think about using an ability before using it.

9. Three alliancesThe Three Banners War was indeed, accoring to lore, about three alliances fighting for control of the Ruby Throne in the Imperial City. However it appears that it totally destroys balance. In all servers there is one dominating alliance and one underdog alliance. Resulting into the second strongest alliance always being the target. Simply because it is the easiest target to attack for the underdog and biggest threat to the dominating alliance. Adding another alliance (e.g. an Imperial alliance) could balance the game more.

10. Map designThe Cyrodiil map look beautiful, but beauty doesn't really matter when you are fighting a war. Balanced map design however does. Due to map design most fights only take place around Bleakers and Alessia bridge. These chokepoints seem to be a real pain in the design. Since there are only long ways around and no short flanking routes. Besides this, the location of the towns (Bruma, Cropsford and Vlastrus), dolmens and ayleid wells are unbalanced. Mostly the Ebonheart Pact suffers from the poor design choice. Another point about the map design is the overal design (including PVE). The design of the map barely changed over the past years. It's pseudo competitor World of Warcraft however does entire map overhauls to keep the game interesting and to keep it's playerbase engaged. The Elder Scolls Online however doesn't engage with old players, but only wants to attract new players with new content (a.k.a. the Morrowind update).